Heat Wave Helping Wildlife?
Monday, August 21st, 2023: Hikes, Holt, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
My twice-weekly hiking routine had been disrupted since April, and the Southwest heat wave had mostly prevented me from hiking for a month and a half – the last serious hike was during a brief cool-off a month ago.
An old friend had taken her life last week, and no hike was going to overcome the melancholy, but the forecast showed the heat wave fading during the next couple of weeks. I re-checked the online trip reports for my old favorite crest hike on the west side, that had been blocked by a massive blowdown in March, and found one from a lady who’d hiked through there at the end of May, mentioning only a few trees down. So with no expectations, I decided to give it a try. It’s a challenging hike and I knew I’d lost a lot of conditioning, and depending on the weather, solar heating might be intense on the exposed crest. But the day was forecast to be windy – that might help.
As I approached the trailhead, I was glad to see a cloud bank over the mountains – wondering how long it would last?
Unsurprisingly, there were few entries in the trailhead log during the past two hot months, and the farthest anyone had gone was the spring at 4-1/2 miles. But one hiker thanked the Forest Service for trail work, which was encouraging.
And a few yards up the trail there was a new wooden sign, to replace the metal “Warning: Trail Not Maintained” sign that’s been there since the 2012 wildfire. This permanent-looking sign announced the trail is unmaintained past Camp Creek Saddle. That suggested two possibilities: first, that the eight miles to the saddle might actually be cleared now, and second, that the remaining twelve miles to the crest trail have been permanently abandoned.
I was excited about the first possibility. Despite being in poor shape, if the trail was clear I was determined to make it to the saddle, a 16-mile round trip with over 5,000′ of elevation gain. I would do it if even if it meant coming back in the dark.
The second possibility was depressing, since this is the last potentially maintainable link in the vast network that used to enable backpackers to traverse the crest of the range.
Unsurprisingly, again, the creek was dry when I reached the canyon bottom, but vegetation was lush in the old burn scar due to our wet winter. And even without running water, I encountered a painted redstart as soon as I left the burn scar and entered the riparian canopy.
Then, two miles into the hike where the blowdown had started, I found that the dozens of big logs across the trail had indeed been cut, probably in May after I called the ranger station to report it.
The work had been done by the equestrians, and I was grateful, but it still bothered me that they were using this to promote their own agenda, going so far as to brand one of the cut logs with their acronym.
Normally, at this time of year, there would be thunderstorms with rain and hail and lots of wildflowers and fungi. In this drought I found only a few flowers and no fresh fungi. Buy the wildlife seemed to be thriving – in rapid succession I came upon an Arizona/Sonoran Mountain Kingsnake, a whitetail deer buck, a Downy Woodpecker, and a rattlesnake.
Panting with effort as the grade got steeper, I made it to the bottom of the switchbacks and found that the big tree across the trail there had indeed been cut. But that’s where the equestrians’ trail maintenance had ended.
Quite a bit of new blowdown slowed me down on the switchbacks, and the wind increased as I trudged upward, exceeding 40 mph in more exposed sites. But clouds still drifted across the sun, and both the wind and the shade really helped. I even felt a chill when under a particularly dark cloud, but as soon as the sun returned it felt like the mid-80s again. The spring at 9,100 feet was still flowing, and I wondered if I would run out of water trying to reach the distant saddle. Nice to know fresh water was available here.
Finally I rounded the corner of the last long switchback and the crest was in sight. I hadn’t seen human tracks anywhere on this trail, and I figured I might be the only person to make it up here since last fall.
I crossed the 9,500′ saddle on the shoulder of the peak and headed down the trail on the back side, through the burn scar dense with regrowth of aspen and locust. The wind was coming from the south, and when I reached the first small stand of intact forest a big limb snapped off and fell a couple yards to my right. I stopped, then figured I’d be safer in the midst of the forest, so I kept going. But then another limb snapped off and fell a few yards to my left. I was pretty sure the wind here was exceeding 50 mph, so I was paying a lot of attention to the canopy.
As usual, the trail down the back side, leading to a long ridge and eventually Camp Creek Saddle, was an obstacle course of thorny locust and blowdown. Virtually no trail work has been done here for at least five years. The burn was patchy, and small stands of alpine mixed-conifer forest alternate with jungles of regrowth. I’d fought my way to the distant saddle almost exactly two years ago, but I knew I wasn’t up for that today. I was just trying to make it to a tiny saddle, the first low point in the ridge, where there was a stand of forest on the south side where I could stop and rest.
But about halfway down I came upon a pile of really fresh bear scat, and started making a lot more noise. Then I saw the first hawk, circling around the little peak above my destination saddle, and heard it screech. Soon it was joined by another, and they poised together in the face of the wind and were joined by a third. The wind was fierce but they kept trying to hold a formation together, right over my head. They stuck around for ten or fifteen minutes before drifting away together.
I had a nice rest in the shade of the forest, while staying vigilant on the wind in the canopy. I was deep enough I felt somewhat protected. I also noticed a pine that wasn’t ponderosa – you have to be really focused to tell the difference, and it’s common to just assume the only conifers in this habitat are ponderosa and doug fir.
Finally I made my back up through the jungle, to the shoulder of the high peak where I climbed to the little rocky overlook. I knew the wind would be at its worst here, but I always love the view, over the heart of the range on the east and the open country to the west.
When I finally reached the long switchbacks down from the crest and got some relief from the wind, I was lucky to encounter a solitary swallowtail butterfly. And I stopped to examine a small pine that had blown down across the trail recently enough that some needles were green. I figured it was the same species as the trees I’d seen on the crest – probably a Southwestern White Pine, which must be fairly common here if you know to look for them.
Steller’s jays had been harrassing me all day, but partway down the trail in the canyon bottom I sensed something rising in the corner of my eye, and noticed a shadowy form settling on a low branch, only 30-40 feet away. It was an owl! A small one, only about 12-14 inches head to tail, but when I got home and looked it up, I found it was almost certainly a rare Mexican Spotted Owl, probably a young one. It just sat there and watched me, obviously curious, until I finally had to go.
Shortly after that, I heard a screech overhead, and the hawks returned, swooping low through the canopy this time. I’ve seen young migrating eagles behaving like this, traveling in flocks and showing off their acrobatic skills. What a day for wildlife! I began to wonder if the heat wave and corresponding absence of humans has allowed wildlife to flourish more in these habitats. Despite the displacement of indigenous peoples, wilderness designation is valuable if only to keep us civilized people under control – we just can’t be trusted not to destroy nature.
